Pressure
Luis seemed permanently stressed. He worked a full time job, always had, but still felt
pressured to meet the expectations of his wife and dog. This was mostly in his head.
His wife, Miriam, was completely lovely about things, and worked as a nurse.
The dog, whose name I don’t recall, did seem to have a real edge. That dog needs a hobby,
I thought.
Doug Mathewson
Keeping a Distance
Our Grandpa has so many odd habits from the old country. Mostly they are just weird, but a few are truly disgusting. Like cracking snail shells with his teeth, and swallowing them down!
He used to spit the shells out on the carpet, but now he has a little galvanized bucket next to his recliner. Well, time to go, don’t get up! We elbow air bump––no big kisses for me thanks.
Doug Mathewson
Cleaning out the old place was taking forever. There was my brother with a
spray-bottle of Windex wiping down a big mixing bowl full of Hot Wheels
cars. Most he put into a shopping bag for the sale, but some he arranged
bumper to bumper circle the wagons style around his plate. “These are my
old ones”, he said, indicating his circular little traffic jam. With a smile that
made him look nine years old again, he showed me a “Z” scratched into the
dull grey underside of a car. He laughed, ”Z is for Zorro”.
Doug Mathewson
In ”The Lives of Saints” I re-read the part about “Santa Pane Tropo Tostado” (Saint Too-Toasted), who was the patron saint of burnt breakfasts, so I could help my sister with her Saints Day themed kids party. The beloved saint carried a small piece of burnt bread with her at all times as a sign of her humility. The rock hard toast was concealed under her fashionably tiny wimple so that the 16th century Italian crows, who were notoriously vicious, wouldn’t steal it. We made little costume wimples for the kids out of Dixie Cups, and scorched half a loaf of gluten free, allergy free, cruelty free Wonder Bread. My sister and our mom got everything organized with the “Black toast under the Dixie wimple” concept, and made sure the kids had edible treats for the party as well. Now I have to come up with a suitably quaint costume to make my surprise entrance as “The Crow”.
The dog was little and had a face like something you’d scrub pots with.
I had to bend over to hear what he were saying, and spilled my drink
on you by mistake. You started yelling “I’m melting!, I’m melting!”
Immediately I recognized Toto, grabbed him, and lit out for Kansas.
Doug Mathewson
Duckie Wow knew it wasn’t everybody’s dream job, but he liked it, and was good at it too. None, absolutely none, of the Empire State Building postcards sold in the Big Apple depicted a giant ape swatting at bi-planes, so for a nickel apiece Duckie painted one in. They sold great!
Rainbow apes for the Pride parade, green ones for Saint Pat’s. He painted them all, big batch or small, for any occasion in every corner of the city no matter how obscure.
Time marched on, as it does, and both of Duckie’s hands fell off. “Too much ape painting”, the
doctors said. But then even at only a nickel a clip he was a millionaire. Sure, it would have been easy enough to have some computer thing do the work now, but that didn’t feel right to Duckie.
He did the honorable thing and hired monkeys to do the work. Not all, but enough ofthe monkeys were decent painters. This allowed the company to expand and to do fairs, and festivals, even have a few permanent locations. The most successful one was at Niagara Falls, right next to the wax museum. For five bucks newlyweds could get their portraits painted on the Mighty Kong’s butt.
Doug Mathewson
I was reading reviews of cat toys, specifically catnip mice. You could say I was in the market.
“Mittens played with it once” (with pictures), or “Pickles completely ignored it” (also with
pictures). The review that stood out was from a lady who bought a cheap pair of mice, and sewed
them on her Cinderella Halloween costume.
Months later, she decided to wear the dress to her friend’s wedding, and took the mice off.
Was it a cosplay wedding? How did the bride feel about Cinderella coming to her ball?
Valet parking for a pumpkin coach? I had questions.
As an after thought she gave the discarded mice to her cat, who absolutely could not care less.
I pulled out my credit card and ordered a pair for $4.
Doug Mathewson
Spreading wicked stories about the girls from St. Margaret’s might be a sin,
but is is eating someone’s brains, and try telling that to my zombie cousins
from New Jersey.
Doug Mathewson
Once in awhile we have something that our trash guy won’t take.
Like the dead Roomba robot vacuum cleaner we put out on the curb.
The heavy rechargeable battery make it an eco-recycle disaster.
So instead I leaned it against the big donation box in front of the liquor store. Let it be somebody’s drunk DIY project.
Doug Mathewson
When the money people ran out of what ever made computer chips smart somebody floated the idea of using recycled dead people instead. There were plenty of them around after the same rich people had privatized heaven into a for profit situation, and not everybody wanted to go. The Bible ducks balked at the idea, plus most families simply couldn’t afford it. If the deceased were willing to have their consciousness transferred into a cheap little blank chip they’d be put it into some devise that related to their interests or work history. There were plenty of jokes about politicians and sex toys, but usually things worked out okay. Dead movie people became popcorn makers, dead lawyers became weed whackers, and down the list were the options of counter top appliances, robot vacuum cleaners, and the like. My recently departed Aunt was always an early bird and enjoyed being an alarm clock. She picked up temp work as a truck back up buzzer to help fill her days. Eventual she was able to go full time as a Walk – Don’t Walk sign for the city.